Neoangin - A Friendly Dog in an Unfriendly World (2001)

1) A Life in a Day; 2) A Friendly Dog in an Unfriendly World; 3) Let Your Money Work for You; 4) The Plot; 5) Under the Plasticsink; 6) Celebrity Bones; 7) Girl with Attitude; 8) I Like to Be Somebody Else; 9) The Nightbus; 10) Poor Living; 11) Under Bad Influence; 12) Guess My Name; 13) Flu; 14) Man Who Brought Light into Darkness; 15) Everything Comes Back; 16) The Shop Detective; 17) Das Feuilleton Groovt Mit; 18) The Unfriendly World; 19) Are You Happy; 20) The Happy Hour; 21) The Blind Passenger; 22) Daydream; 23) 2 Sides of a Coin; 24) Trouble Couple; 25) Hall of Fame of Selfexploitation; 26) San Antonio; 27) Playing on the Piano of New Media; 28) Don't Take Money from Anyone; 29) All Fucked Up; 30) The Long Goodbye; 31) Give Me a Platform; 32) Walnut Kitten; 33) Another Day in Another Life

A cartoon potpourri of quirky melodies and kitschy grooves, that could have perhaps benefited from a bit more of a focus. 

Key tracks: "A Friendly Dog in an Unfriendly World", "Everything Comes Back", "Walnut Kitten"

I ended up with a copy of this album largely by happenstance when a friend of mine was doing some collection spring cleaning by way of shoving me a ton of their CDs they didn't have room for anymore, and in lieu of actual knowledge a quick Internet search tells me that Jim Avignon - aka Neoangin - is a German do-it-all artisté (with the signature hat to match the accent on the stress, based on various photos) who mashes up cartoons, painting, music and performance art into a concoction that seems to have given him some degree of fame in Germany. Which makes perfect sense, because A Friendly Dog in an Unfriendly World is precisely the kind of music you'd expect from that kind of an artist.

The channel-hopping 33 songs and fifty minutes of A Friendly Dog in an Unfriendly World is a potpourri of kitschy sounds, MIDI production jobs and happy-go-lucky sing-along melodies, with a dash of lamentations on the weight of the modern world thrown in for good measure, sung with a heavy German accent. Avignon's world is a realm of bright colours, cardboard backdrops and cartoon animals, and Neoangin is his interpretation of pop music: the songs average on 1:30 to 2 minutes, most of them gleefully blur the borders between what's an interlude and what isn't, with blink-and-you-miss-it segues scattered liberally throughout. Avignon doesn't leave any room for subtlety or development - songs smack the listener right out of the gate with their most obvious, catchiest hooks and then either repeat it until they stick or until the next song suddenly appears. The lyrics try to aim for something deeper, with a prominent use of the traditional twist of introspective lyrics on top of deceptively upbeat music, but Avignon's bone-dry, barely-singing delivery makes them just as oddbeat as the musical backdrop; it's urban environment adulthood anxiety, if you happen to live in Toontown instead of New York. It's all very ridiculous, but also often genuinely charming or lovable.

My problem with A Friendly Dog in an Unfriendly World is perhaps more to do with me than the album itself, and it's that as a music listener I have issues keeping my attention span focused with quickfire snippet albums such as this. It's too much information in too small of a span of time and while I do appreciate that the manic nature of the record does fit with its music, in practice the album becomes a singular formless blob of music that moves from one thing to another so quickly I can't fully register the songs as they breeze past. Which, perhaps arguably, may as well be the point but while the melodies ring familiar to me when they play, it's another thing for them to actually stick. The primary exceptions for this are near the start and the end, and to some extent that's simply because they're the first and last things you hear when the record is on, but there's an argument that the bookends of the record are its most developed songs. The title track in particular is the most perfect pop song Avignon presents across the entire extended medley of a record and it's a genuinely great little ditty that, even if only two minutes in length, sounds more fleshed out and finished than anything else on the record. "Walnut Kitten" on the other end sticks out because of its calmer and more graceful touch. There are a few moments throughout the album where its facade as a goofy cartoon jumble cracks and Avignon almost sheepishly creates something more serious (the central third in particular is rich in this vein), and the three-minute "Walnut Kitten" takes that to its logical conclusion right at the end and acts as the comedown for the fifty-odd minutes preceding it: the friendly dog kicking off his shoes and slumping in his lazy chair after another long day in the unfriendly world. It's a lovely instrumental which allows Avignon to showcase that he is actually a really good composer and arranger in a way that the rest of the album's quick flashes necessarily doesn't do justice to, and tonally it feels like the right way to end the record. 

That isn't to say that the rest of the album lacks memorability - "Everything Comes Back" with its chill frolic vibe in particular comes to mind - just that it's harder to to grab onto the great parts in the chaotic jumble of interludes, segues and speedrunning melodies. As said before that's an "it's not you, it's me" situation, and the manic colourful rush through the album's running length does befit Avignon's aesthetic and the tone of the songs: at the same time, the handful of songs that sound like their own thing instead of just a segment of a wider whole make a convincing argument that Avignon could have made a stellar 30-40 minute album just by focusing on those (and maybe he has and I'm unaware of it). The rambliness of A Friendly Dog in an Unfriendly World is what ultimately makes it a thoroughly charming curio rather than an actually great record for me - an album that I appreciate in its aesthetic and vibe more than I actually adore musically. But that said, I don't often get to say this about albums with such cartoony cover art, but A Friendly Dog in an Unfriendly World sounds exactly like it looks - and that alone is something worth cherishing.

Rating: 7/10

Ben Houge - Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura OST (2001)

 
1) Arcanum; 2) The Demise of the Zephyr; 3) Wilderness; 4) Tarant; 5) Tarant Sewers; 6) Caladon; 7) Caladon Catacombs; 8) Dungeons; 9) Battle at Vendigroth; 10) Tulla; 11) Towns; 12) The Isle of Despair; 13) Mines; 14) Cities; 15) Radcliffe's Commission; 16) The Vendigroth Wastes; 17) Villages; 18) Qintarra; 19) The Wheel Clan; 20) The Void; 21) Kerghan's Castle

An atypically mournful score for an arrestingly captivating game.

Key tracks: "Arcanum", "Tarant", "Villages"

One of the recurring phrases and themes in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series is that the world has moved on: that the passage of time is inevitable and natural, but it's made out of different eras starting and ending and that transition is rarely an instant process. Sometimes you find yourself in a time and place where the old world is dying while the new one is yet to truly begin. Whenever I play through Arcanum, that phrase keeps entering my head. The setting of Arcanum is a fantasy realm the kind of which we know inside and out, with its noble knights, fearsome dragons, powerful wizards and familiar faces from dwarves to orcs to elves. But the game itself takes place at a time when those dwarves have discovered steam technology and where the realm's most fearsome knights suffered an embarrasing defeat when the opposing nation brought out muskets. The last dragon was slain not too long ago, and the formerly ever-present magic is now being replaced by synthetic electricity as the industrial age beckons forward. The world has moved on, and many of its inhabitants have found themselves misplaced in the process.

Arcanum is a game with a great sadness in its heart. The technology that has appeared is not evil, but as the old world shifts to the new the change leaves a melancholy trace behind it. Ben Houge's beautiful score underlines this sentiment perfectly. The vast majority of Houge's soundtrack has been arranged for and performed by a string quartet, with the mournful tones of its components left to dominate the game's music almost fully on their own. It's a subdued and downstated soundtrack, with its melodies playing out like laments for the areas the player character travels in; even the combat music isn't the kind that gets your energy pumping, but one which draws out the tension of the conflict. It's only in the last four songs of the tracklist where the score changes tract: The score only changes tract for the last four tracks in the tracklist: "Qintarra" and "The Wheel Clan" feature additional percussion while "The Void" and "Kerghan's Castle" are ambient-like synthesizer exercises. They break the cohesive mood to some extent, but they're different for a reason as the first two feature in the areas that act as the few lasting remnants of Arcanum's pre-technological age, while the latter are used in the more otherwordly sections of the game which literally move away from the game's normal setting. So, they're conceptually solid and the arrangements are just as sharp (for the percussion cuts anyway, given the minimalist approach of the other two), and leaving them to the end of the tracklist is probably the least disruptive way they could be included.

If you can call a game soundtrack an underappreciated gem then this fits the description excellently - much like the game itself, which belongs in my personal pantheon of all-time greats even if the gaming world at large has moved on from it. Houge's score is a gorgeous accompaniment to the generally brilliant game because it fleshes out the game's setting so strongly and leaves an impact in just how perfectly it emphasises the game's tone. I might even carefully choose to suggest it for even those who haven't played the game, if string quartets are one's jam - the arrangements are perfectly evocative on their own.

Rating: 8/10

Sonic Team - Sonic Adventure 2 Multi-Dimensional Original Soundtrack (2001)

CD1: 1) SA2 ...Main Riff for Sonic Adventure 2; 2) Event: Let's Make It!; 3) Escape From the City ...for City Escape; 4) The Mad Convoy Race ...for City Escape; 5) That's the Way I Like It ...for Metal Harbor; 6) Can't Stop, So What!? ...for Metal Harbor; 7) Won't Stop, Just Go! ...for Green Forest; 8) Keys the Ruin ...for Pyramid Cave; 9) Unstable World ...for Crazy Gadget; 10) Highway in the Sky ...for Final Rush; 11) Boss: -GUN- Mobile; 12) Advertise: SA2 ...in the Groove; 13) Event: Strategy: 14) This Way Out ...for Prison Lane; 15) Rumbling HWY ...for Mission Street; 16) Chasing Drive ...for Kart; 17) Down in the Base ...for Hidden Base; 18) On the Edge ...for Eternal Engine; 19) Advertise: SA2 ver. B; 20) Kick the Rock! ...for Wild Canyon; 21) A Ghost's Pumpkin Soup ...for Pumpkin Hill; 22) Dive into the Mellow ...for Aquatic Mine; 23) Deeper ...for Death Chamber; 24) Space Trip Steps ...for Meteor Herd; 25) Boss: Masters of the Desert: 26) Event: Reunion; 27) Advertise: Prof. Omochao; 28) Chao Race Extended Mix (Chao's Doki-Doki Banana Chips Run Mix); 29) Chao Garden Extended Mix (Chao's Wack-Wack Up & Down the Ground Mix)
CD2: 1) Vengeance Is Mine ...for Radical Highway; 2) Rhythm and Balance ...for White Jungle; 3) Mr. Unsmiley ...for Sky Rail; 4) The Supernatural ...for Final Chase; 5) For True Story ...for Sonic vs. Shadow; 6) Event: Conquest; 7) Hey You! It's Time to Speed Up Again!!!; 8) Still Invincible ...No Fear!; 9) Advertise: Rhythmic Passage; 10) Boss: Suitable Opponent; 11) Remember Me? M.F.M. ...for Iron Gate; 12) Way to the Base ...for Sand Ocean; 13) Trespasser ...for Lost Colony; 14) Crush 'Em All ...for Weapons Bed; 15) Soarin' Over the Space ...for Cosmic Wall; 16) Event: 3 Black Noises (Revival... Chaos Control... Reflection...); 17) Advertise: SA2 ver. C; 18) Event: Sonic vs. Shadow; 19) Bright Sound ...for Dry Lagoon; 20) Lovely Gate 3 ...for Egg Quarters; 21) I'm a Spy ...for Security Hall; 22) 34N, 12E ...for Mad Space; 23) Event: The Base; 24) Boss: Shut Up Faker!; 25) Scramble for the Core ...for Cannon's Core; 26) Cooperation ...for Cannon's Core; 27) Deep Inside Of... for Cannon's Core; 28) Supporting Me ...for Biolizard; 29) Event: Madness; 30) Event: The Last Scene; 31) Live & Learn ...Main Theme of Sonic Adventure 2

An ambitious, expansive and epic attempt to create something spectacular for Sonic the Hedgehog's first big anniversary ends up becoming the series' highest benchmark of quality.

Key tracks: "Escape from the City", "Kick the Rock!", "Live and Learn"

I've long cultivated an analogy of Sonic the Hedgehog soundtracks as a band discography for my own fun, and continuing on that theme, Sonic Adventure 2 is the sprawling, multi-disc epic created by a band that's high and lofty with ambition, unafraid to tackle any obstacle and wanting to expand their sound in every single direction. That's right - in the world of Sonic music this is the Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, the Sandinista, the White Album.

1998's Sonic Adventure brought Sonic to the 3D world, and in the process introduced and in some places codified many of the trademark elements now associated with the series. One of those was the music. The infectiously melodic sound of the original 2D games was obviously restricted by the hardware of its time, which towards the late 90s and the adoption of CDs as the primary format for games was no longer an issue, and so a reinvention was not only possible but in many ways necessary. Spearheaded by Jun Senoue, who had taken the step to become the primary musical coordinator for the series and who boasted some serious guitar chops of his own, the soundtrack for Sonic Adventure had a decent amount of variety as the music team took every advantage of the new sound possibilities, but above all it was tied together by Senoue's energetic and dynamic guitar-lead rock approach. The melodies were still present and in the forefront, but through Sonic Adventure, the entire series became synonymous with the revved-up riffs and solos that Senoue cast over the high-speed action, backed by his incredibly virtuosic band.

The release of Sonic Adventure 2 was the key event for Sonic's 10th anniversary celebrations, and the aim for the game was to make into the kind of an Event that an anniversary milestone should be. Thus, the plot increased the stakes and injected a fair bit of before unseen dramatic flair to the series, the level set pieces became more bombastic in an endless internal contest to one-up the previous level, and Senoue's soundtrack team were driven to be more ambitious to match the increasingly epic nature of the game. The main goal was to keep increasing the variety. While Sonic Adventure already featured multiple playable characters each with their own levels, the songs that played during the stages remained the same depending on the area. For Sonic Adventure 2, the decision was made for each character to bear their unique musical flair that would tie together their levels while making the journey of each hero (or anti-hero) stand apart from the others. The other big addition was the increased presence of actual vocals accompanying the music. The first game had already featured vocal themes for all the characters and so Sonic Adventure 2 kept up that tradition, but in addition the soundtrack team began to utilise vocals throughout the actual stage songs, leading to several stages having their own unique sung lyrics accompanying the songs. As a soundtrack it was bigger, bolder and more expansive than the already ambitious Sonic Adventure score - in every way possible they could think of.

The core of the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack is still close to the sound that Sonic Adventure introduced, so the familiar guitar-lead anthems are present throughout across the two discs, but there's now the added twist of each character having a signature sound that breaks the soundtrack into neat little stylistic sections. For half the characters, the songs are rooted in the core sound but with different emphasis points and variations for each one. Sonic's stage songs are appropriately closest to the signature sound and they're among most unabashedly energetic of the set, with a peppy rock attitude speeding through Senoue's guitar wails. They're the closest representation of the series' newly adopted main style and in doing so end up being the most instantly hit-like (if you can describe video game songs as such), and in particular the first stage song, "Escape from the City" has deservedly become an iconic piece of the series' history: it's a snappy pop-punk anthem with free-spirited vocals and some of the most infectious melodies of the whole series, combined with an outrageously feel-good chorus. Tails' and Eggman's stages skirt around the same direction as Sonic's, but Tails' sections slightly nudge the guitars to the side from way of bright keyboard melodies, while Eggman's part of the soundtrack makes the riffs crunchier and rhythms more appropriately mechanical. The quality keeps consistently high throughout, and in fact while Sonic's songs might be punchier, Eggman and particularly Tails' score are full of delightful arrangement details and hidden mini melodies underneath the big ones. They never stop sounding fresh, which is definitely a boon when you're repeating the same levels over and over again in search of the elusive A-rank completions.

The broader divergences come with the other three characters. Shadow the Hedgehog is a creature on a roaring rampage of revenge for most of his story, and so his stages take a darker atmosphere while the genre shifts into a mixture of drum 'n' bass, jungle and techno, aggressive hyper-active beats keeping the adrenaline flowing, with the heavily filtered vocals that are barely legible giving the songs an intense, brooding feel. Rouge's jazz pop grooves are the complete opposite, with bright acoustic guitars, horns and rhythmic wordless vocals dum-dum-duming across breezy, light-as-air melodies. And then there's Knuckles. In Sonic Adventure, Knuckles' character theme beared a big rap influence and for the sequel the sound team drilled down on this, with all of his stage songs showing off a hip hop vibe and coming with full rap verses, with barely any instrumental time in-between. They are also incredible. Knuckles' stage songs are among the most fun in the entire game - utterly and completely cheesy of course, because when you have lines like "echi-don-a, that's what I'm representin'" or "the great emerald's power allows me to feel" it's unavoidable, but they are delivered with perfection. Hunnid-P has a great, charismatic flow, the production is top-notch with a suave jazz-rap groove vibe, and there's hooks for days. "Kick the Rock!" is just as iconic as "Escape from the City", "A Ghost's Pumpkin Soup" should be a regular part of everyone's Halloween playlist, "Dive into the Mellow" defines chill-hop, and "Space Trip Steps" soars and floats appropriately. The downtempo "Deeper" isn't quite as flashy as the rest, but the sudden monologue where Hunnid-P out of nowhere enacts a dialogue between Sonic and Knuckles all in same breathless voice tone (and which never appears in the game, it's a soundtrack-only inclusion) is a moment of baffling creative madness that becomes the de facto highlight of the song.

 
In-between these, there's a scattered number of various cutscene scores (Event), menu music (Advertise), boss themes (Boss), minigame medleys and other miscellanea, all of which display a similar genre-fluid freedom. The only thing slightly less than exciting than the stunningly consistent rest of the collection is the orchestral suite "3 Black Noises" which by its very nature stands out and halts the flow, and the two Chao Garden (think of a tamagotchi side game that could very well be a game unto its own) medleys which are charming but, in lack of a better word, a little 'kiddy' at times; the Chao Garden mix has some nice background moodscapes, but the Chao Race medley can be a little too saccharine and like out of a pre-schooler show. Still, from a completionist point of view it's good they're here and at least they're at the end of the disc, where they won't break the flow inadvertently. The boss themes are great throughout, and the melancholy but defiant and determined "Supporting Me" is de facto one of the definitive songs of the soundtrack, and even the cutscene tracks get their chance to shine with the heroic introduction scene of "Let's Make It!" which interpolates Sonic's character theme (not present on this soundtrack set), and especially the bittersweetly beautiful ending theme "The Last Scene" being particularly great. And of course, there's "Live and Learn", the main theme of the game. "Live and Learn" is quite certainly the apex point for Crush 40, the Sonic Team house band who frequently perform the main themes for the games, as well as the series' overall greatest theme song, to the point that you could at this stage call it the main theme of the entire franchise - it's an iconic song and an absolutely top-notch anthem, full of great riffs, great passionate hard rock vocals (not normally my cup of tea but Johnny Gioeli gets my points), a fantastic middle-eight and a final chorus that kicks up the gear all the way to eleven as the final send off.

You take all that and combine that together, and you can make a very real and very strong case that the soundtrack for Sonic Adventure 2 is quite possibly the greatest of all Sonic the Hedgehog soundtracks. Given the overall rock solid quality control across the decades that the series has held onto in its music, even whenever the games may not have been all that, that's a pretty high and mighty claim. It boils down to how this acts like the perfect sweet spot for the franchise's music. The style that the Blue Blur is most associated with - the wildhearted rock anthems - is polished to perfection here to the degree that it's these songs that define the sound, and it's thanks to this soundtrack that these aesthetics have become such a defining aspect of Sonic the Hedgehog. On top of that, the sound team took that boost of ambition and inspiration and rode it towards places they maybe couldn't the last time, adapting that polish and aesthetic towards entirely new ideas, casting the series' musical net wider almost overnight. Combine that with some incredibly strong songs, many of which feel like they could have even had a life outside video games if they were nudged towards that direction, and you get a soundtrack that is as aweworthy as it is expansive. It is exactly like those colossal multi-disc rock albums listed before - a triumph of ambition and inspiration from musicians who wanted to reach the next level.

But if we want to really crack open why this is getting the rare full score out of me, we need to dig a little deeper.

If the fact that I've already written so, so many paragraphs within this review alone about Sonic the Hedgehog music didn't tip you off, once upon a time I was a dedicated, full-time Sonic the Hedgehog fan. I was the kind of person who signed up to several forums dedicated to the series, became a regular contributor and a semi-known name across most of them, who would listen to the various soundtracks on repeat on a near-daily basis and who would play these games regularly over and over again - especially Sonic Adventure 2 or rather the SA2: Battle version on the GameCube. My formative years of being on the internet revolved around this franchise, and I felt a genuine community spirit with it: I'd idly spend late night hours just browsing pages of topics of like-minded people discussing various minutae, shared the excitement and joy whenever something new was announced or discovered, and some of the people I met through that eventually became friends who I still hang out with regularly in the real world. All of that was a long lifetime ago, but it's left a permanent imprint on me and as an obvious result, the series will always have a place in my heart even if I've more or less left the fandom behind as an active member - I still play the games, buy the soundtrack CDs and collect the odd piece of merchandise that ticks my boxes where and when I feel the need to. And out of all the great music in the entire franchise, it's the soundtrack to Sonic Adventure 2 that to me most represents that period of my life and the sort-of special part the series has held for me during parts of it: it was Sonic Adventure 2 that effectively pulled me down through the rabbit hole, I spent genuinely countless hours playing it through those years, and the physical version of this soundtrack was the first of its kind I ever purchased and thus became even more special as I could play these songs out loud through my CD player (and I am glad I did spend my pocket money on it - this goes for well over £200 in Discogs now).

We music fans, by default, have special records that we cling to because they're attached to parts of our life that made us who we were: albums where we get emotional just by hearing certain melodies because they take us back to years ago when we heard them brand new, where we know each lyric by heart like they reflect the secrets of the universe for our ears only, and through which we relive all those emotions over and over again while we dive into the sounds that are so familiar that they're where we feel most comfortable. This collection of songs here is from a cheesy video game starring a bunch of Saturday morning cartoons, but it has that exact same effect for me as any of those other, more "serious" albums I hold on particularly personally resonant pedestals; even when the melodies come with mental images of bouncing around blocky graphics or the lyrics I know by heart are along the lines of "Got places to go, gotta follow my rainbow" or "Don't call me Knuckles, gimme your props". Sonic Adventure 2 is my favourite Sonic game and among my top video games of all time, this soundtrack is by far my number one game soundtrack of all time, and both of those factoids represent much more to me than those phrases can convey.

I took part in a small Sonic convention in the UK once, that had somehow managed to nab Johnny Gioeli and Jun Senoue as guests of honour. As part of their appearance, they performed a live concert as the official final event of the convention. If "Live and Learn" hadn't already become a classic part of Sonic history, it certainly became such through the experience of hearing a big room full of fans belting out its chorus in unison with the duo. It's one of those moments in time I'll never forget, and nearly every song out of the sixty here has vivid memories just as strong as that, even if tied to smaller moments across the few years of my life where these songs were genuinely relevant for me. Those may have just been particularly geeky early teenage years, but I have nothing but wonderful memories of that period in time, and this album is time machine that takes me back to them.

Rating: 10/10

Röyksopp - Melody A.M. (2001)

1) So Easy; 2) Eple; 3) Sparks; 4) In Space; 5) Poor Leno; 6) A Higher Place; 7) Röyksopp's Night Out; 8) Remind Me; 9) She's So; 10) 40 Years Back/Come

Nordic cool, chill yet with a lively energy. Defining the turn-of-millennium sound and time warping there over and over again - and there's great songs too.

Key tracks: "Eple", "Sparks", "Poor Leno"

A lushly produced debut album from an European duo circa the turn of the millennium, with one foot firmly in electronic music and the other taking steps towards different horizons, spearheading a trend that was more focused towards the lounges and living rooms than the dancefloors, and who would soundtrack countless "chill mix" compilations. Quick - am I talking about Moon Safari by Air, or Melody A.M. by Röyksopp?

While the two albums are kindred spirits, the big difference between them is where they’re placed in time. Moon Safari, despite its obvious retro affectations, sounds timeless and you can’t nail down its sound to a particular decade as it takes ideas from across decades. Melody A.M. meanwhile is the spirit of the millennium, inextricably linked to the rise of the chill electronic beats that were the hottest thing around, and the Nordic cool often accompanying them as they moved across Europe in particular. If you were around at the time, it’s the kind of record that will always take you back to that period. This was the sound that was playing everywhere around, literally in the case “Eple” which featured in seemingly every single advert break and public space. As a result, all the songs on Melody A.M. act like little time capsules in their own separate ways. “Sparks” is a runaway Moby song from his own millennial peak years, Erlend Øye’s vocals on “Poor Leno” and “Remind Me” echo the brief spotlight that Kings of Convenience had during the same time period, “Röyksopp’s Night Out” is a 1-to-1 readthrough of the club-friendly production fashion of the time, et cetera.

Melody A.M. wouldn't hold up as well as it does if it didn't sound so incredibly fresh though, which is an unbelievable thing for an album that's seemingly so tied to its year of origin. It's the ideas behind the songs that are completely timeless however, and there's nothing better to demonstrate this than the aforementioned “Eple” itself - Röyksopp’s signature song anywhere that isn’t the UK or the US. It’s a song that without fail will always take me back to my school years in the small town I lived in, but listening to it decades later as a grown man in a big city, it hasn’t aged a day: the sound is still fresh like a sharp apple, the synth blip melody is immortal in its instant infectiousness, and its lighter-than-air groove never goes out of fashion. It’s a song that has not just survived its omnipresence of the period, but which sounds like it could take over the world any day now again - and it always brings a genuine smile on my miserable face and warmth in my Northern heart in just how effortlessly gliding it is. It's a little masterpiece that doesn't roll over like a revolution, but plays in perfect harmony no matter the season or the year.

You can more or less lump the rest of the songs in a similar category: great tunes that sound as current now as they have ever been. "Poor Leno" and "Remind Me" are among the most finely arranged synthpop cuts of the 00s, filled with ache and longing over an impeccably cool production job loaded with charming instrumental details; I love the guitar on "Poor Leno" in particular, flicking from chicken-scratch disco to an ethereally floating melody. Øye's subdued vocals too fit so perfectly to the smooth synth backdrop that it's here where he's in his natural element, rather than with acoustic ballads, and the more laidback album version compared to the potentially more familiar single remix demonstrates it the best. "Sparks" is gorgeous and wistful, music for watching the rain cover everything outside the window when you're stuck inside. "So Easy" is amusing as an opener for their first album because it feels like the song that Röyksopp took as their signature sound; it's the song they've tried to recreate the most throughout their career and one of the few songs here that look forward to the rest of the duo's discography, when they'd abandon the more lounge-like aspects of this record. But they never bettered the formula from the ghost-like choirs and steadily swaggering bass of "So Easy".

In fact, the only one I’m not too fond of is “Röyksopp’s Night Out” which is the odd one out in several ways. It seems to be intended to be somewhat of a peak or a waterline for the record - the extended jam that crescendos the steady climb of energy coming towards it and leads into the more laidback last set of songs. But it’s the one song that’s most clearly gone past its use-by date with its reliance on very of-its-time beats and sounds and it stands out in that respect, which I wouldn’t mind so much if the song itself did anything noteworthy during its seven and half minutes. It’s not even the fact that it’s instrumental and so far all the songs I’ve praised bar “Eple” incorporate vocals to varying degrees, because the other instrumental cuts like the blissful “In Space” (one of the most gracefully lovely songs on the record), or the closing duo of the extremely Air-like lounge cut “She’s So” and the ambient closer “40 Years Back/Come” are still strong.

The overall good news therefore is that that even if you can't relate to the very specific memories of some random internet old fart who reviews music, Melody A.M. is still a great record. I'd hesitate to call it essential, even if it somewhat feels like it - it would certainly well deserve a slot in a Nordic-specific edition of the 1,001 Albums You Must Hear book - but if anything, it's perhaps slightly overlooked, certainly further away from its home. It belongs in the hallowed set of records that manage to sound both effortless and relaxing, as well as directly engaging and energetic; one for both ethereal headphone moments and to fire up a room party. It's an album I perhaps struggle to write in any kind of 'objective' sense because how closely it reminds me of where I was when I first became aware of it - but then, no other albums bearing this sound have survived this long. Of all the records that bore this sound in the early 00s, I can't remember any other one as clearly as this, which leaves Melody A.M. a practical example of survival of the fittest - especially once Röyksopp themselves moved on pretty swiftly to different places once they had their doors opened, never repeating this trick again. And I appreciate and acknowledge that I've banged on about the album's place in time to an uncomfortable and practically repetetive degree, but it's literally the primary aspect that hits me the most when I listen to Melody A.M. - and not in a nostalgic sense at all, but like a pure sensory memory, a real metaphysical sense of being there. Music can transport you to different places and while there are so many albums I connect more to on a personal level, Melody A.M. is one of the most vivid time machines I can think of.

Rating: 8/10

Various Artists - Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition (2001)

1) Main Title (GOTY Remix); 2) Intro Sequence; 3) Liberty Island; 4) UNATCO; 5) Battery Park; 6) NYC Streets; 7) Lebedev's Airfield; 8) Airfield Action; 9) Enemy Within; 10) Desolation (Hong Kong Canal); 11) The Synapse (Hong Kong Streets); 12) Hong Kong Action; 13) Majestic 12 Labs; 14) Versalife; 15) Naval Base; 16) Paris Streets; 17) DuClare Chateau; 18) Paris Action; 19) Return to NYC; 20) Oceanlab; 21) Ocean Action; 22) Oceanlab Complex; 23) Vandenberg; 24) Begin the End (Bunker); 25) Area 51; 26) Ending 1; 27) Ending 2; 28) Ending 3; 29) The Illuminati; 30) DX Club Mix

Put on a trench coat, and fight some conspiracies... A classic game has a great score, obviously - even with the usual soundtrack caveats.

Key tracks: "Main Title", "UNATCO", "DuClare Chateau"

Deus Ex, AKA one of video gaming’s all-time greats, is likely very familiar for most people who’d choose to read a review of its soundtrack, but here's a quick recap should you simply be archive binging my reviews (thank you). The 2000 release from Ion Storm Austin (not to be confused with their Dallas sibling studio who will most definitely never see their name in any gaming greats retrospectives) is widely considered a landmark in gaming, with deep gameplay, excellent world building, writing so good that it makes the game’s Conspiracy Theory Greatest Hits narrative actually work, and an emphasis on one of gaming’s most esteemed but widely misunderstood buzzwords: choice. Deus Ex is a player’s playground to go about however they please, and only half of it is actually ever pointed out explicitly. Between multilayered level design and the variety of gameplay styles catered to, Deus Ex gives players impressively free hands to go about their journey in their own way: some of it has been intended by the dev team who seemingly thought of everything, but the degree of completely valid gameplay choices that reward the ingenuity of more experimental/crazy players makes it stand out even today, two decades after its release. It's the kind of game that by its very nature creates a very dedicated and passionate fanbase, and which is spoken about with mystical reverence by those who’ve played it - and it still warrants that esteem to this day, only being dated in its graphics.

Part of what makes Deus Ex so captivating is its score, simply by way of its sound. The composers - mostly Alexander Brandon, with features from Michiel van den Bos and Dan Gardopeé - had prior video game credits but were mostly famous within the MOD tracker scene. MODs were originally an Amiga sound format but which by the late 90s had developed further and in turn created a veritable community dedicated to composing vast amounts of original music on the format, as well as the occasional PC game score. MODs have a very distinct synth sound to them, rough around the edges but with a particularly strong atmospheric texture, and the choice for Deus Ex to utilise the sound was an unconventional stroke of genius. Even back in 2000 Deus Ex wasn’t a particularly pretty game but it had a very distinct visual atmosphere to it. The designers built their ambitious ideas through an engine that didn’t necessarily stretch to accommodate all of them perfectly, and while set in the future with all the sci-fi polish that it entailed, the world itself was ugly and gritty. The very peculiar characteristic tone of MODs suited the visuals perfectly: high-tech and futuristic, but with a twang that dislodged it from any particular time period.

The choice of utilising the MOD tracker sound really adds a whole unique depth to Deus Ex and contributes so much to the game’s atmosphere, but the relatively free hands that the composers were given in terms of the actual compositions is what makes it a great score. Brandon and co didn’t just treat the music they made as background music, and in fact if you listened to the score on its own you might get an entirely different impression on the intensity and energy of the gameplay compared to what it actually is. It’s a hook-driven score, with songs that have distinct sections and development across their length. Most video game scores tend to either be atmospheric background textures or snappy compositions built around a tight loop that warrants repetition; Deus Ex’s score mostly resembles fully-formed songs. There’s still plenty of what you would consider more typical soundtrack fare, and the contrast between the centrepiece songs and the bridges in-between is pretty wide in terms of memorability, but the same sensibilities both in production and composition are filtered through. For a game that often encourages the player to take their time and focus on its world, the soundtrack is unexpectedly populated by actual jams with a rush of energy coursing through them.

The best thing here is, without a doubt, the main theme. It’s probably my favourite video game theme of all time: it’s epic in nature in a way that represents all the superlative feelings I have for the game so accurately, it has a killer central melody, the way it transforms throughout is a little journey of its own without ever going on a downswing, and the MOD production gives it an absolutely perfect unique aesthetic. The Game of the Year remix that appears on this particular soundtrack release is a little beefier and loses some of that MOD magic, and I prefer the original; but the version here still bears all of the strengths of the theme as a piece of music. Other particular standouts include the ambient melodies of “UNATCO” which has rightfully become the most iconic part of the soundtrack alongside the main theme (sneakily reprised in Deus Ex: Human Revolution for example), the gritty groove of “NYC Streets” and the beautiful piano-led melancholy of “DuClare Chateau” which then switches onto a stylish, cyber-noir stomper.

As far as the style and sound go this is as perfect a soundtrack as you could imagine for a game like Deus Ex, but the typical soundtrack release caveat applies here too: as great as it is to have the complete score, there's very few games with all-killer no-filler soundtracks, just because of the nature of games and especially narrative-oriented ones such as Deus Ex. Catch me unaware and make me list my favourite game soundtracks off the top of my head, and I'd probably happily include Deus Ex within that list; but my favourite way to enjoy this soundtrack is a personally abridged version that cuts out some of the thirty songs to create a definitive dive into the world of the game.

Rating: 8/10

Manic Street Preachers - Know Your Enemy (2001)

1) Found That Soul; 2) Ocean Spray; 3) Intravenous Agnostic; 4) So Why So Sad; 5) Let Robeson Sing; 6) The Year of Purification; 7) Wattsville Blues; 8) Miss Europa Disco Dancer; 9) Dead Martyrs; 10) His Last Painting; 11) My Guernica; 12) The Convalescent; 13) Epicentre; 14) Royal Correspondent; 15) Baby Elián; 16) Freedom of Speech Won't Feed My Children; 17) We're All Bourgeois Now [hidden track]

Untamed, chaotic, intentional crash into a brick wall - far away from the polished rock anthems of the hit albums before it. And it's fantastic.

Key tracks: Ocean Spray, Intravenous Agnostic, Wattsville Blues

After the two hit album streak of 1996's orchestral Everything Must Go and 1998's introspective and melancholy This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours, Manic Street Preachers had reached the success they had always wanted, and they were miserable. Their rise in popularity and streak of radio hit singles had turned them into the flavour of the month, the band finding themselves disconnected from their own art as their increasingly sizeable concert venues became filled with people who only knew the hits. They had started their career with overshot ambitions of millions of record sales and now that they had done it, typically for the band, they started to react against it. The New Years 2000 stand-alone single "The Masses Against the Classes", released to welcome in the new millennium as an indication of things to come, showcased the band in a more furious, energetic and rawer form than they had been in years. Afterwards, the band retreated to Spain in isolation from the British music press and began to work on the album that they deemed their intentional self-destruction. Rather than craft elaborate anthems in the studio over a few months, all songs were written, performed and recorded quickly to allow for intuition to take lead and to welcome any idea no matter what it was - no more than three practice runs were allowed before recording the song with as few takes as possible. The initial intention was to revive their old punk roots but as the band stopped censoring themselves, any single idea that came to mind was deemed worthy of recording; everything under the sun was thrown around, produced to different degrees of polish (or not) and sometimes mixed together in form of creative chaos.

The initial plan was to release absolutely everything they recorded, either in the form of a double album or two different albums Use Your Illusion style, but what eventually formed out of the sessions was Know Your Enemy. 16 songs and one hidden track, shifting from quickfire punk rockers to pristinely produced Beach Boys pastiches, from ramshackle acoustic ballads to drum-machine driven weariness, from spoken word angst to disco. The c-part of a song left out of the album was cut and included as a mid-album hidden interlude. The bassist who had never sung lead before does his debut while the frontman who had never written a lyric in the band's entire career finally gets the courage to do so. Even Wire himself, as the band’s regular lyricist, zips back and forth between the introspection and melancholy of the past two albums, clumsy but direct political stabs and plain word salad. The running order of the songs has no reason or rhyme and could just as well have been shuffled. To represent this, the band released two lead singles simultaneously that couldn’t have been any further from one another if they tried: on one hand you had the raging guitars of “Found That Soul”, the other hand held the summertime pop anthem “So Why So Sad”. The launch concert was held in Cuba long before Rolling Stones made the headlines doing the same, away from the band's regular touring routes (and was attended by Fidel Castro to boot).

Know Your Enemy does not make sense nor does it intend to: the obligatory quote the band picked to represent the album in the liner notes is Susan Sontag’s “The only interesting answers are those which destroy the questions”. It's a gigantic, schizophrenic pandemonium of ideas and directions pulling in all directions. It was intended to confuse, to throw a spanner in the works and to raze the field to ashes to find out what would grow afterwards. The critics were baffled, while creating alternative track lists to make more sense out of it became a popular fan hobby. Everyone agreed it was a mess. And all that is why it’s brilliant.

Know Your Enemy is not quite as chaotic as it seems at first glance. Amidst the rampart disorder and initial sense of directionlessness, you can find an identifiable core for Know Your Enemy in its scruffy, rough-round-the-edges rockers and world-weary pop songs: the flip sides of the band’s rage against their own internal conflicting instincts, both the loud defiance and restless confusion. "Ocean Spray" right at the start is like a direct exhibition: driven forward by rambling acoustics guitar and drowned out loud by their electric counterparts in the fuzzed-out chorus, it’s musically a microcosm of the album brought within four minutes. It’s also where Bradfield has penned his own lyrics, dictating his own anecdotal lyrics about his mother’s battle with cancer, letting the crashing of the guitars vent out the frustration and sadness in the breakdowns. A mournful trumpet replaces the traditional guitar solo, Sean Moore showing his skills by playing its solemn melody. It’s the closest the album gets to what could constitute a traditionally classic Manics song, just morphed into a new form.

If Manics had pinned this particular direction down as the focal point of the album, we could be talking about different kind of a classic record in the band’s repertoire: one that merges the developed talent in melody and arrangement shown throughout the past two albums with a rawer, more grounded sensibility. The jangly "The Year of Purification" takes its inspiration from the IRS-era R.E.M. and hides its angry political lashing out in the sweetest and brightest of melodies. "His Last Painting" goes through its three minutes simplistically and without much change, looping its core melody and structure in a Groundhog’s Day fashion before finally tearing itself apart and fading away instrument by instrument. The pounding "Epicentre" continues with the band’s growing intuition for piano-lead songs, but this time treating the instrument like the stabbing riffs of a guitar with clanging, punched notes, only moving to the elegant later on just in time for the band to flip the song into something as close as this album gets to an anthem by its end. "Let Robeson Sing" takes the guise of a sunny gospel song, relishing in its harmonies and backing vocals. For an album that was meant to be disruptive and guided by whim rather than careful consideration, Know Your Enemy at times acts like a celebration of brightly lush melodies, either because Bradfield is a natural with them or the quick turnaround forced his hand to put them right in the center rather than arranging something more elaborate around them.

Half the time these tendencies manifest into thundering rock songs, throwing back to the initial concept of the record and primarily dominated by James shouting down the mic and raising a storm with his guitars. The co-lead single "Found That Soul" opens the album with a storming three-minute guitar blast and frantic one-note rock ‘n’ roll piano hammering that never stops for a breath. The lyrics of "Intravenous Agnostic" do not even try to make sense but its downright neurotic drive, including one of Bradfield's more insane solo moments, shows the album at its most unhinged - and its mad rush of energy is one of the band’s most downright giddy displays of guitar rock glory. Both "Dead Martyrs" and "My Guernica" take a more unpolished approach, filtered like they're recorded through a phone, which suits their loud and proud nature perfectly. The epic centrepiece and culmination of everything is the six-minute "The Convalescent" which goes from 0 to 100 instantly and packs within it all the intensity, the mania, the conflict and the relentless attitude the recording process was characterised by, intentionally or not. The lyric is close to a stream-of-consciousness rant, lead by Wire’s growing frustration while literally describing his bedroom to excruciating detail and Bradfield tapping onto the emotion it intends to convey, and eventually the song climaxes into a fervourous blaze of wordless vocals growing more anxious with the instruments winding tighter and tighter: the whole song feels like it’s on fire and going out of control.

You can trace a common thread between all of these songs and they would comfortably create a somewhat cohesive - if still an untamed - collection of songs, but Know Your Enemy really gets its reputation as a troublemaker by its weirder side. Know Your Enemy is one of the most experimental Manics albums, not necessarily in the way we normally come to associate that term with, but in the sheer guts that they've actually placed these songs on the record. Normally the stylistic trials and quirkier ideas would either get relegated as b-sides or self-censored into creative oblivion, but Know Your Enemy lets the wilder side of Manics shine out in the open. "So Why So Sad" is pure sunshine pop with Beach Boys backing vocals (not the least of which are the constant ‘ba ba ba’s), so crammed with production gimmicks and keyboards that you can barely hear Bradfield’s guitar under them and a synthesiser solo to top it all off. Wire, whose rough and gruff voice had already seen increased backing vocal appearances throughout the album becomes the frontman on the murky "Wattsville Blues”, spitting hatred and apathy ("life is killing me", "don't want no fuckin' friends", "useless motherfuckers knocking at my door", etc) over an increasingly frantic drum machine before the bouncy, funky chorus jumps out of nowhere and Bradfield takes the lead vocal briefly while Wire gets increasingly aggressive about it. "Miss Europa Disco Dancer", like the title suggests, goes full-on honest disco with no trace of rock creeping in: glimmering keyboards, funky bass, disco guitar and starry-eyed glamour fill the space as the band who you’d never ever imagine doing this suddenly have the time of their lives, only for Wire to appear again at the end of the track and lead the song to its fadeaway end with an expletive-filled chant.

It’s brilliant though. These shouldn’t work, but they do because they have that creative insanity to them and most importantly the pure and complete devotion behind them. It’s the normally (by this point) somewhat stiff-back band paying zero mind to anyone but their own whims and throwing themselves in on any wild idea, and that wild abandon sounds so fresh and fun - “Wattsville Blues” and “Miss Europa Disco Dancer” is one of the strongest one-two punches in the Manics catalogue in large because of the audacity of them; and beneath the shock and gasp of the sound, they’re rock solid songs. Same with “So Why So Sad”, possibly the most criminally underrated single of the band’s career, and same with any of the other songs where that experimental trait runs through even if not as blatantly, e.g. with the drum-programmed quiet fury of “Royal Correspondent”, the jangle pop of “The Year of Purification”, etc. When people use the expressions about throwing things in the wall to see if anything sticks, it’s rarely considered what happens when those things do actually stick; that’s exactly what happens with Know Your Enemy, where any idea - no matter how out there for the band in question - had enough skill and guts backed behind it for them to work.

At sixteen songs (17 if you count the cover of McCarthy’s “We’re All Bourgeois Now” hidden at the end of the album, pretty much identical to the original musically but with James belting over it) it’d be hard to argue that Know Your Enemy is flawless, and it certainly isn’t. The choruses of “Baby Elián” meander following the intricate groove of the much more arresting verses, “Freedom of Speech Won’t Feed My Children” has a lot of great ideas (any song with heavy usage of call-and-answer backing vocals will always have my vote) but feels a little like a b-side bonus track tacked at the end to bring the album to a quick halt (although it sort of works with the album’s general disjointed nature). Wire’s lyrics show a remarkable bitterness throughout the album and are just as often great as they are awkward, worst of all whenever he goes on a political kick and ends up being more clunky than observant. You could argue that some of the songs could have benefitted from a bit more polish or work. But the album hits the bullseye way too many times for any of its obvious downsides to really have any damaging effect. Know Your Enemy was meant to be a creative shake-up based on pure instinct and with the band riding their golden age strong still, those instincts produced something new and unique each time. For what’s supposed to be the great opinion divider and an act of self-immolation, the record behaves much more like an ode to the creative spark driving the band at the time - no matter what they would do, it’d be a success, and just because it’s less polished than its hit-making predecessors, it only shows that the band didn’t need the fancy studio environment and added instrumentation to create something.

Still, it did what it was set out to do. None of its singles became perennial favourites in the way the previous albums’ choices had, the spotlight started to grow smaller and any of the expectations anyone had for the band were cleared out or reassessed. The Manics being the Manics, they started to doubt their own instincts from the moment the record was released; almost half the album was ignored on the very tour for the record (and they haven’t made much of an appearance since either) and the band was trying their best to not be too dismissive about it from the get-go: while the idea behind recording the album was a great big ‘screw you’ to everyone, the band were much more meek and mild about the whole affair the instant it was out. The band intentionally set out to create a giant mess, with no intention to pay attention to it afterwards until the damage was already done.

But it’s an incredible mess. My overall preference when it comes to albums is that cohesion is king, that records are thematic entities and the songs should be in support of the whole. The lesson of Know Your Enemy is that being all over the place can form its own kind of creative unit when there’s an intent behind it. Through embracing their first thoughts and not censoring themselves, giving themselves the right to do absolutely whatever that came to mind, the Manics created this sprawling, unorganised, rugged rock record that would be confusing if it wasn’t so well-written and infectiously good throughout its length. The Manics are always at their best when they lock out of the rest of the world from their studio work - Know Your Enemy is a grand, thoroughly exciting example of that.

There were a good several years of my teens when the Manics meant to me more than any other musical act. This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours had opened my mind to music beyond what I had accustomed to and Everything Must Go, purchased a bit thereafter, taught me that I should keep it in my mind to hear more from this band. Know Your Enemy in its own special way turned me into the obsessed fanboy, fervently studying its details with my DiscMan next to me and the (now very time-worn) liner notes booklet in one hand. I’m normally innocently oblivious to how people can not see the strengths of the records I love but this is a case where it’s absolutely obvious why this could split opinions - and I unabashedly, obsessively love this chaotic act of a band tearing itself apart and seeing what they can form out of the scraps.

Rating: 9/10

Midlake - Milkmaid Grand Army EP (2001)

1) She Removes Her Spiral Hair; 2) Paper Gown; 3) Excited But Not Enough; 4) I Lost My Bodyweight in the Forest; 5) Simple; 6) Roller Skate (Farewell June); 7) Golden Hour

Debut EPs rarely fully showcase what the artist in question would turn out to be like, but if you want to hear Midlake having a bit of an alt rock crunch to them, here's the only place you'll get a chance to.

Key tracks: "She Removes Her Spiral Hair", "Roller Skate (Farewell June)"

There's a fair few years between Midlake's first EP and their first album, and an even longer gap towards their breakthrough album The Trials of Van Occupanther and the arrival of what could be considered their signature sound. During those years Midlake were moving from sound to sound in search of something they could call their own. That Milkmaid Grand Army EP doesn't really connect sonically to any other Midlake release isn't too unexpected given the time between it and everything else, but it's still surprising because it's just so off the beaten path for them. Way before the fuzzy synths or the pastoral folk rock, Midlake's greatest inspiration (by their own words) was OK Computer and the sullen British guitar rock of the late 90s, and that's what they wanted to replicate.

It's strange to hear Tim Smith's voice over such straightforwardly guitar-rocking cuts - a real alternate universe what-if experience -  and maybe it's better for their legacy that the band moved away from this sound pretty quickly, but hot damn they're actually good at it. "She Removes Her Spiral Hair", "Excited But Not Enough" and "Roller Skate" are a great combination of britrock hooks with US indie je ne sais quoi quirk: the guitars have a good crunch to them, they're backed by the gorgeous retro synthesizers the band would emphasise for their debut, and while atypically rocking for this band they make the sound and songs theirs. They're missing a lot of what would make Midlake great when they became all grown up, but in the place of those aspects these songs have their own strengths. "She Removes Her Spiral Hair" is close to top-tier Midlake overall, with its pounding drums, swooning chorus and excellent, detail-oriented arrangement - and the other two aren't too far, with "Excited But Not Enough" dialling up the rock band intensity and the upbeat "Roller Skate" frolicking on with an off-kilter sense of fun, handclaps and all. The only downside here is the awkward sound swithc in "Excited But Not Enough" close to its end, which honestly sounds like an editing error taking away the joint between the song's two clear segments. I honestly thought my copy had an error in it; it's the one part of the EP that's scruffy and wobbles with the first steps.

Excluding the brief and rather non-descript instrumental interlude "I Lost My Bodyweight in the Forest", the other three songs are a more familiar fare. "Paper Gown", "Simple" and "Golden Hour" are all moodier mid-tempo cuts, gently pacing forward in their weariness: they also edge closer to a more familiar Midlake sound and could be Bamnan and Slivercork outtakes if you squint your eyes a little. They're good songs, but a little one-note and samey - I still mix them up - and the alternation between them and the guitar-heavier songs mainly just serves to highlight the excitement of the other three songs, reducing the mid-tempo posse into extended bridges between them. "Paper Gown" is the best of the lot because it has a bit more life to it than the other two and in its overall arrangement resembles the distant cousin of the songs it's sandwiched between, but these aren't the songs that make this EP interesting for fans.

That said, filing Milkmaid Grand Army EP into the same just-for-fans drawer most debut EPs end up in is a little unkind. There's nothing rough in this and it only really looks like an awkward party crasher because it's so far removed in relation to how Midlake would actually eventually sound like (in any part of their transformation-full career). It's a fully realised vision, which could have easily acted as a launch pad for a different kind of career; Midlake simply chose to pursue other ideas. It's far from a hidden gem too but the songs for most parts stand up proudly; and I'd be delighted to hear more from the mirror universe version of Midlake who'd go on to move directly forward from here.

Rating: 7/10

Sonic Team - Sonic Adventure 2 Cuts Unleashed: SA2 Vocal Collection (2001)

1) It Doesn't Matter (Theme of Sonic); 2) Escape from the City (for City Escape); 3) Believe in Myself (Theme of Tails); 4) Unknown from M.E. (Theme of Knuckles); 5) Fly in the Freedom (Theme of Rouge); 6) Throw It All Away (Theme of Shadow); 7) E.G.G.M.A.N. (Theme of Eggman); 8) Live & Learn (Main Theme of Sonic Adventure 2); 9-16); Instrumental versions

The vocal themes from the game where the series grew a beard and got more serious. Still cheesy and lovably so, but with a serious focus to the craft. 

Key tracks: "Believe in Myself", "Unknown from M.E.", "Live & Learn"

Sonic Adventure 2 was released on Sonic's 10th birthday and as the anniversary game it aimed to deliver everything in a bolder, more epic way than ever before in the series: including the series' first steps into more serious themes in contrast to the usual Saturday morning cartoon plots. SA2 does a better job of balancing that inherent mismatch than many of the little more misjudged attempts since, and that same balancing act applies to the vocal theme songs that had become a new feature for the series with the first Sonic Adventure game. There is no escape from the inherent cheese in Sonic vocal themes (which is partly the reason why they can be so lovable), and the songs on the Sonic Adventure 2 themes on Cuts Unleashed aren't attempting to fight against it either. Even if these are rock songs about neon-coloured animal characters, they can still try to take themselves seriously within their own world; the source material doesn't have to mean you can't try to say something about the characters.

The three hero side songs (the game splits its length between the good guys and the anti-villains) demonstrate this refined approach pretty well. The songs for Sonic, Tails and Knuckles are all remakes of their themes from the first Sonic Adventure, and where the first game openly and blissfully waded into the cartoon cheese, the versions here buckle up and try to take themselves a little more thematically seriously. "It Doesn't Matter" now has a pop punk pace to it, replacing the original wind-in-hair highway rock and its carefree attitude suits Sonic's character far better. "Believe in Myself" is now an A-grade pop/rock anthem with a fire in its belly, featuring some lush arrangement details that wonderfully underline the song's upbeat ideas. I'm not afraid to admit I have an irrational adoration towards the song, but it's a fantastic representation of the mix of cartoon wholesomeness and genuinely quite excellent hooks that Sonic themes often aim for. It's "Unknown from M.E." that truly takes a leap as a reimagination though. For some reason Sonic Team decided on Sonic Adventure that Knuckles' chosen musical style is hip-hop and his theme in Sonic Adventure has the slight clunkiness of people with no hip-hop past trying to fit that genre into Sonic the Hedgehog; for SA2 the team went all-in and honed down on their approach, smoothed all the rough edges off, and realised how to pull it off the best. The SA2 version of "Unknown from M.E." features slicker rap sections, smooth RnB-flavoured choruses, a fantastic vocal interplay between the leads for the respective sections and a constantly shifting and evolving production that gets increasingly more exciting. Replace the lyrics with something less geeky and all three songs could stand up on their own two feet - a case in point that just because you're doing game themes, it doesn't mean you can't take the craft seriously.

The three dark side songs are all brand new compositions and highlight the expanded genre palette of SA2, where each character was paired up with a distinctive sound for all their levels, and where the themes are a logical follow-up of that. "Fly in the Freedom" is a smoothly floating, jazz-flirting pop tune which is once again an arranger's playground, from its suave guitars to the underlining backing vocals; out of all the songs here, it's the song that's least like what you might stereotypically imagine as game music and it's kinda impressive in its own way. Over on the complete other side, "E.G.G.M.A.N." is a hammy cartoon bad guy anthem and relishing in it: it's by far the most outrageous song of the lot but it's captivating much like a great villain song should, and it's laden with the kind of hooks that keep your foot tapping for days. "Throw It All Away" is the weakest of the lot: its moody techno goes a bit over the top in its attempt to sound dark and edgy, but ultimately its main crime is that it's twice longer than it should be, its couple of good building blocks repeated ad infinitum without much change and in comparison to all the other themes, comes off very one-note. A lot of Shadow's gameplay segments feature songs in a similar style and with vocals to boot, but they all do the same thing better than his actual main theme does.

In addition to the six character songs, the mini-album also features the game's main theme and one of the stage songs. "Live & Learn" has become more or less the definitive vocal theme song of the series and the equivalent of a signature song for Sonic Team's house band Crush 40, and it's really obvious why. It's a fist-pumping anthem loaded with energy, packed with a powerful signature riff, featured Johnny Gioeli's best vocal performance in the Sonic history, and just when you think it's reached its peak, the song shoots out one level higher for the last chorus in a brilliant example of a key note change done right. No Sonic main theme has ever come close to "Live & Learn" and it may as well be the series' main theme for what it's worth. The inclusion of "Escape From the City", the song from Sonic's first stage, is a little random but practically an act of precognition: time has turned the stage into an iconic Sonic moment and simultaneously turned the song itself into one of the series' all-time classics, and so its inclusion feels almost justified here as if Sonic Team anticipated it would become one of the game's big songs. And it is a great song, of course - super-addictive feel-good pop punk with one of the franchise's best choruses. By the end of the album you also have instrumental versions of each song, which aren't really a positive or a negative thing: they help to hear the production details but like most instrumental versions, mainly get shelved after one listen.

I'll share an anecdote. I used to be a fairly massive Sonic fan, but there was a point in time where I had ended up losing touch with the series. Where at one point I had been listening to random Sonic soundtracks on a nearly daily basis, I had also started to become more obsessed with music general and finding myself in love with new bands and artists at an exponential rate, and thus listening to this music and playing these games had fallen off my radar nearly completely. One day, the SA2 version of "Believe in Myself" came up on a music player shuffle and on that very instant, as the song played, every single memory I had of playing the series and listening to the music in my more formative years flooded back into my mind. When I got home, I pulled the game back out of the shelf and started it for the first time in ages and went on to relive through it again - a moment that essentially solidified my love for the series once again (even if I'm hardly the same fanatic today as I was back in the days). Everything on this album is very close to my heart, as ridiculous as these songs can be. You most likely don't feel the same in the slightest should you listen to any of these songs without any connection to the games - you might wonder what exactly I'm rambling about in the paragraphs above. As such, I'm not going to say that you should listen to these songs even if you know nothing about the context; I mean you might get a kick out of them but I'm not going to bet on that. Instead, I'm going to finish this by simply saying that to it me it doesn't matter these are from a game about a blue hedgehog and his friends: there's a meaning here that's long since become something bigger than the source material.

Rating: 9/10

R.E.M. - Reveal (2001)

1) The Lifting; 2) I’ve Been High; 3) All the Way to Reno (You’re Gonna Be a Star); 4) She Just Wants to Be; 5) Disappear; 6) Saturn Return; 7) Beat a Drum; 8) Imitation of Life; 9) Summer Turns to High; 10) Chorus and the Ring; 11) I’ll Take the Rain; 12) Beachball

Up's electronica elements mixed with the lush orchestral production of the early 90s records, which when combined turn into a quintessential summer record.

Key tracks: "I've Been High", "Beat a Drum", "Imitation of Life"

After Up’s deeply personal, soul-cleansing exercise, Reveal carries an aura of reconnection with the greater world. As incredible as Up was, the primary impression it leaves is its very insular sound and mood, where you have to dig a little deeper to find the still strongly beating heart of R.E.M.’s songwriting. Reveal, then, presents as much of an 180 turn as Up did. The traditional band roles in more prominent display again again (including an increased presence of session drummers), even if there’s still a lingering element of R.E.M. taking cautious steps forward as a three-person incarnation in tune with Up’s soundscapes, with programmed drums, frequent synthesizers and emphasised keyboard parts making up much of the album. But as albums, they’re night and day - where Up was the melancholy late hours spent awake lost in thought; Reveal is the brand new morning. It’s a decidedly more upbeat album, full of harmonies rather than controlled chaos. There’s a clear desire for the band to smile again, resulting in a shift in gears to a more traditionally R.E.M.-esque album. Even the opening song welcomes you in: “Good morning! How are you? The weather’s fine, the sky is blue…”

“The Lifting”, the said opener, is a grand start and continues with the band’s tradition of strong openers, and is in fact one of the best in that regard. It’s light as a breeze, bouncing on every step like a liberated free spirit, throwing an infectious hook after another as Buck’s familiar jangle appears and the drums carry an infectious rhythm. Stipe has entertained the thought that the song is about the same overworked soul as Up’s “Daysleeper”, and thus it’s another semi-intentional shedding of the previous album’s weariness, bringing the melancholy narrator to the open sunlight. It’s an overwhelmingly joyous song above all, but doesn’t aggressively try to be one, like e.g. the decidedly hyper-upbeat “Stand” or “Shiny Happy People”. There’s genuinity to it and its spiralling conclusion, with Stipe yelping full of energy, is a moment of honest delight - and in that sense, it leads the way perfectly. Reveal is open and inviting, in tone and in music - positive, melodically rich and full of hooks. After Up’s experimentation Reveal places simple songcraft back in the spotlight, and while there’s still great importance placed on the production of the material, the songs presented here are first and foremost guided by their melodies.

Much of what makes Reveal jump alive is still how the band treat the studio as an integral instrument in its own right, and the ambience that’s pushed through the ideas making up the album’s world of sound. There’s a level of obsession in details prevalent throughout, carefully layered sounds and minor parts forming into a greater whole as R.E.M. seek a particular feeling throughout. Reveal is a pastoral album, a record aimed for summer through and through - the cover, the May release date, the constant lyrical references to the season and especially overt touches like sampling crickets make it abundantly clear, and the sound itself is appropriately lush, warm and inviting. The production is pristine enough to let all these details come through clearly, but there’s not a trace of studio sterility. The instrumentation emphasises bright keyboards, clean guitar parts and gentle touches of electronic programming, with Up’s dissonance brushed away as far back as possible. Even in its more introspective moments the band reach out their hand rather than wallow away.

The production’s other main role is tying together Reveal’s different strands. R.E.M. are in transition here, with one foot in the electronic soundscapes they’ve played around with for the previous couple of years, while the other foot is kicking back for a full band feel. Thus Reveal is, despite its unifying atmosphere, a diverse album. The traditional R.E.M. band sound makes a comeback frequently, but with a twist in how it goes about its arrangements, though there is a precedent. Before Reveal, the band released the (fantastic) soundtrack single “The Great Beyond”, re-introducing R.E.M. as a full-band rock act but one with an expanded sonic palette built upon Up’s studio wizardry and the willingness to tap into new soundscapes through precise arrangements, and it’s like the blueprint that Reveal’s foundations are based on. Thus for example the guitar-driven “Disappear” and “She Just Wants to Be” sound like natural extensions of where the band were in the 90s, but there’s a kind of grace and aural richness that sounds new. It’s at times akin to a 21st century update on studio magic of 60s classic pop psychedelia years.

The first two singles, “Imitation of Life” and “All the Way to Reno”, are such great examples of this - and they are among the band’s most obvious hits in how irresistibly melodic and sing-along-y they are. To R.E.M.’s credit they don’t sound remotely like they were engineered to be so and instead they are, once again, rich and soulful. The former is an unashamed pop anthem with one of the band’s most simply thrilling choruses (and some fine, contrasting lower-end string stabs and the suddenly bittersweet bridge cutting through the song and reducing the risk of saccharine overload). The latter is a relaxed, effortlessly lush melodic stroll rich in harmonies and arranged gorgeously: of all the songs in Reveal, it carries the strongest comparison to “The Great Beyond” and goes for the same almost-wistful euphoria, successfully as well. In complete contrast, “I’ll Take the Rain” is a gut-puncher - a bittersweet, heartaching ballad among the band’s most fragile, swerving Reveal’s final run with a sudden emotional curveball. With one of their most poignant choruses, it goes all the way to the top, its sadness piercing through with Buck’s chiming guitar lines (and an actual guitar solo!). It’s a powerful song, utilising Reveal’s warmth in a wholly different way than the rest of the album.

The keyboard/synth-oriented songs on the other hand are dreamy, serene moments of still among the lively full band cuts. “I’ve Been High” is arguably the most extreme of the lot, as there’s nary a trace of live instrument in its pseudo-synth pop sound. It’s a colossally beautiful, haunting deep cut however, full of graceful melancholy and soothing dreaminess breaking through the sad haze - and its last minute, from its career standout bridge to the rise it takes in its finale and Stipe’s evocative lyric lines, is absolutely incredible. “Beat a Drum”, “Summer Turns to High” and “Beachball” on the other hand are prime examples of what I mean when I talk about Reveal as a summer album, evoking the spirit of the season and the lazy holidays with their warm sound. The latter two directly make the comparisons, the electro-acoustic “Summer Turns to High” obviously so while the mellow float of “Beachball” somehow manages to take the feeling of watching the sun go down at the end of a perfect summer’s day and turn it into music, gently bobbing along with its minimalistic beat. “Beat a Drum” is a little masterpiece as well, with Mills taking control through his softly swaying bass riff, the gentle piano leading the song and enriching the chorus through his backing vocals. The chorus, incidentally, is another one that manages to evoke so much so effectively through what is in the end a very few lines and a fairly straightforward progression; and yet, it’s one of the album’s most magical moments, a true blooming of warm summer air in music.

The one song most driven by the production, “Saturn Return”, is a little marvel on its own: all tightly-wound atmosphere with little elements bouncing back and forth between the headphones, constantly switching its lead instrument from Buck’s feedback-heavy guitar line to Mills’ delicate piano, floating on top of a persistent drum machine up until the near end when the live drums kick in for a moment. It’s the most Up-esque moment on Reveal, a bridge between the two that reminds the band haven’t completed moved away from it. It’s quietly one of Reveal’s key tracks: an unassuming oddity at first, eventually revealing itself to be an integral centrepiece and a curious shadow cast over the album’s summer day.

The one remaining song, “Chorus and the Ring”, is a strange one, not really going anywhere yet towards its end it reaches a certain kind of crescendo of its own ilk where you find yourself strangely captured by the song. It’s an odd one out on an album that otherwise has a very direct touch with its songwriting (“Saturn Return” included), and perhaps the only slightly dimmer spot in what is otherwise one of R.E.M.’s very finest records. That’s not a light statement, but it feels almost borderline obvious, because Reveal seems to have it all. Stipe is in brilliant lyrical form, with so many great lines that lead your imagination flying, the production is golden and everyone involved with the actual playing of the music are delivering a sharp performance. And as an album, Reveal is certainly one of their most melodic: it embraces a type of songwriting which leans on harmony and goes for hooks within hooks, almost overwhelmingly so. That’s always been a strength for R.E.M. and Reveal revolves around it, making it the core theme for the album together with the lushness and the summer vibe. If you can think of a picturesque sunset on a peaceful summer’s evening following a pleasantly hot day, and experiencing that comforting feeling of everything being perfect and carefree in life like the best summer vacation you’ve had - that’s where Reveal wants to take you.

And it does. “Beachball” closes the album with Stipe repeating “you’ll do fine” as the sun goes down in the horizon, and you can tell that after all the sadness and uncertainty, there was hope again in the band’s ranks.

Rating: 9/10

The Shins - Oh, Inverted World (2001)

1) Caring Is Creepy; 2) One by One All Day; 3) Weird Divide; 4) Know Your Onion!; 5) Girl Inform Me; 6) New Slang; 7) The Celibate Life; 8) Girl on the Wing; 9) Your Algebra; 10) Pressed in a Book; 11) The Past and Pending

A humble beginning, with that one song that could change your life.

Key tracks: "Caring Is Creepy", "New Slang", "Girl on the Wing"

The Shins' debut comes heavy with expectations. It's not because of the infamous and over-referenced (guilty, natch!) "change your life" line from Garden State - I don't believe anyone takes that bit with any gravitas anymore and it's long since established itself as a running joke that's cruelly if well-intendedly forever levied against Oh, Inverted World and The Shins in general. It's "New Slang" that's the big weight. It's one of the hallowed group of songs with the power to force you to sit down and pay attention from the first instance. The emotional weight dripping from James Mercer's weary voice, the ridiculously simple but cunningly brilliant "ooh-ooh-ooh" hook, the gorgeous arrangement that seems like a straightforward campfire song at first but eventually reveals itself to host a multitude of depth and tiny but important details, the sheer gravitas of it for such a straightforward song - it's a brilliant, brilliant song. Yet it's a humble and unassuming song, but that's perhaps its most important strength - it resonates like a personal hidden treasure you've happened to come across and it could be special to you and you alone.

There is absolutely nothing on Oh, Inverted World that comes even close to "New Slang" and the song is its biggest curse: a legitimate classic weighing down the rest of its parent album that didn't have the luck to be just as majestic. Good news is that the sooner that thought is processed and dealt with, the sooner you come to realise the album's other strengths, even if it takes a long while like for the undersigned. They're just completely different ones.

Humble and unassuming describes Oh, Inverted World accurately enough as a whole. It's a literal bedroom recording, with most of it having been written and recorded in Mercer's own home before any hope of it seeing a true light of day was in anyone's minds. They're short, unassuming pop songs: warm, lithe melodies with songwriting where the backbone lies in straightforward singer/songwriter elements. That alone makes it a novelty within The Shins' discography. Mercer can be a genius within his genre when it comes to brilliantly clever yet still blindingly direct melodies, and Oh, Inverted World is the one album where that factor hasn't had the chance yet to become The Shins' de facto modus operandi. Each album since this has dressed those melodies up in grand, punchy arrangements like a bloodhungry indie pop barbarian - some very successfully and some less so. Oh, Inverted World plays with smaller stakes, if at any: it's homely and homey.

The one little flourish that Oh, Inverted World does allow itself is some rather tasteful keyboard work. They're not extravagant parts either, but they bring a change to a lot of the album's general sound world and the songs that hold them up the clearest generally end up being the album's best. "Caring Is Creepy" - as close to a big and explosive "rocker" as this album gets - highlights its love-at-first-sight hooks with vintage organs, the playfully ascending and descending keyboard riff of "Girl on a Wing" ends up stealing the show particularly as the song slows its pace from its cold open, and the brightly parading synths of "One by One All Day" practically make the song (as does the cunningly punctuating xylophone referenced in the song's lyrics), as enjoyable as its twee rollicking generally is. The keyboards overall lend kind of dreaminess all over the album that adds to its charms, and often turn out to be the main part that strikes a fancy in their respective songs.

There's one more ace to the album's sleeve and that's the closing track "The Past and Pending", which is more or less "New Slang" Part 2, just a little dreamier; it's a lovely way to close the album as its refrain seems to run forever and you want to cling onto it for as long as you can. The remaining tracks are fine even if not as strong. They contribute to the overall atmosphere of the album and there's frequent reminders of Mercer's cunning tricks (the dialogue-like vocal runs of "Know Your Onion!" for example), but there's a clear gap running between them and what's already mentioned. It's a classic case of the sum being better than the parts. the stronger set carrying the weight while what's in-between accentuate the overall feel. With only half an hour in length, even the lesser cuts never overstay their welcome and stay novel.

I tend to prefer The Shins when Mercer's a bit more vibrant in his expression, but Oh, Inverted World has more to it than its humble outlook and the endless weight of its Big Song offer at first glance. It's the cosiest Shins album, a more intimate wrapping for Mercer's tricks, and that's proven to be aspect that lures me in. It'd be great if everything was as strong as "Caring Is Creepy" or especially "New Slang", but this is one case where it's hard to hold the album against itself given how well the whole ultimately works.

Rating: 7/10